Fired FBI Director James Comey appears to have weighed in on chants of “send her back” at President Donald Trump’s rally this week, urging that the president and his supporters must be sent back to their “dark corner” in the 2020 presidential election.
“We have long had ugly margins in this country, but we are a fundamentally decent people, with shared values. We treasure our identity as a nation of immigrants,” Comey tweeted on Thursday afternoon. “With our voices and our 2020 votes, we must send Donald Trump and his mob back to their dark corner.”
Chants about deporting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) came as President Trump rattled off a laundry list of critical statements made by the far-left congresswoman during a campaign rally Wednesday in Greenville, North Carolina. He recalled her minimizing of the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, mocking the threat from Al-Qaeda, and pushing leniency for a would-be ISIS recruit.
President Trump also blasted Omar’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). “She described contemporary America as – that’s you, that’s me, that’s all of us– as ‘garbage,’” the president said of Ocasio-Cortez’s previous remarks about his supporters. “Remember ‘deplorables’? That sounds worse. I think that’s worse. But we’ll save it for whoever’s going to be the nominee.”
President Trump has been in a war of words with the “Squad” since challenging them over the weekend to leave the U.S. if they continue with their attacks on the country. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how,” he said of the freshman congresswomen Sunday.
Democrats expressed outrage over the remarks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) referring to them as “xenophobic.”
“Trump knows that when we stand together and fight for racial, social, economic and environmental justice, we have the power to defeat him. So the demagogue is doing what he knows best: Divide and conquer through hate,” 2020 White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said of the remark.
Fellow Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said of the comments that it was important to continue “calling out his racism, xenophobia, and misogyny is imperative.” She also claimed the president’s remarks show he’s “desperate” to shore up support ahead of the 2020 election.
On Thursday, President Trump disavowed the chants of “send her back,” telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was “not happy” about them.
“I felt a little bit badly about it, but I will say this: I did start speaking very quickly… I was not happy with it. I disagree with it, but, again, I didn’t say that; they did,” he said.